July 16, 2025

On July 16, 2025, the First Senate, at the public part of the plenary session, deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaint of Mykola Baranovskyi in the form of written proceedings.

During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, Oksana Hryshchuk, outlined the content of the constitutional complaint and the applicant's justification.

The judge-rapporteur informed that the applicant had appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the compliance of paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine” No. 1774–VIII dated December 6, 2016, as amended (hereinafter, “Law No. 1774”) with the Constitution of Ukraine.

The contested provisions of Law No. 1774 establish that the minimum wage, after the entry into force of this Law, is not applied as a calculation value for determining official salaries and wages of employees and other payments, except for calculating the annual amount of financing for the statutory activities of political parties (paragraph one); until amendments are made to the laws of Ukraine regarding the non-application of the minimum wage as a calculation value, it is applied in the amount of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons established as of January 1 of the calendar year, from January 1, 2017 (paragraph two).

From the content of the constitutional complaint and the materials attached to it, it is seen that Mykola Baranovskyi is a pensioner who does not work, is registered with the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Zhytomyr region, has the status of a person who suffered as a result of the Chornobyl disaster, and lives in a settlement that is classified as a zone of radioactive contamination as a result of the Chornobyl disaster.

The applicant notes that Law No. 1774 changed the calculation value from the minimum wage to the subsistence minimum, which began to be used for calculating all payments where the minimum wage was previously used as the calculation value, as well as for calculating other payments and sanctions, and made such changes to a number of laws of Ukraine.

Not agreeing with this, he appealed to the courts of the judicial system with administrative claims. The Supreme Court dismissed the applicant's cassation appeals, and the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances were left unchanged.

The petitioner emphasises that the application of paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of Law No. 1774 in the final court decision in his case led to a reduction in the amount of the supplement to his pension in comparison with the previously established payments provided for in Article 39 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Disaster” No. 796-XII dated February 28, 1991 as amended (hereinafter, “Law No. 796”). In his opinion, this indicates a narrowing of the content and scope of constitutional rights, in particular the right to property, defined by parts one and four of Article 41 of the Constitution of Ukraine. The petitioner also believes that the establishment by the contested provision of Law No. 1774 of a calculation value for determining the amount of the supplement to the pension, different from the calculation value established by Law No. 796, and the priority of application of the provisions of Law No. 1774 does not comply with a number of norms of the Constitution of Ukraine.

In this case, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session.

The video recording of the plenary session in available on the official website of the Court in the section “Archive of video broadcasts of sessions”.